Agriculture and Rural Development

A rude awakening by geese screaming at my door was not the way I envisioned starting my day. With temperatures near freezing, the 6.00 AM milking session seemed a daunting first task in my 12-hour internship as a family farmer in Santa Catarina, Brazil.

Smallholder farmers, even those in structured value chains such as cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, are largely unable to access banks, microfinance institutions and other formal financial institutions. Providing meaningful financial services to these customers in an affordable and sustainable manner is a great challenge.

In India, animal husbandry and dairying are important economic activities accounting for approximately 33 percent of the agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP). India is the largest producer of milk having achieved an annual production of 146.3 million tons in 2014-15. As the economy grows and income increases, a World Bank study points out, per capita consumption for milk and milk products in the country is projected to rise to more than 350 grams per day by 2020.

Dairying is also a major source of livelihood for approximately 80 percent of small and marginal farmers in India (typically owning one to three milk producing animals) who contribute approximately 70 percent to the total milk production. In addition, women play an extremely critical role in multifarious dairying activities at the household level in both rural and urban areas. The country’s livestock sector is one of the largest in the world with 56.7% and 12.5% of world’s buffaloes and cattle respectively.

An important milestone in the significant growth of the dairy sector in the past decades has been a series of ‘Operation Flood Programs’ spearheaded by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB)through promotion of dairy cooperatives across the country. In addition, the World Bank funded National Dairy Plan 1 (NDP) run by the NDDB for the period 2011-12 to 2017-18, is a scientifically planned multi-state initiative. It aims at increasing the productivity of milch animals and providing rural milk producers greater access to the organized milk-processing sector. It is estimated that only 30 percent of the marketable surplus is sold to the organized sector. Small producers in rural areas, who account for 70 percent of milk production, are particularly affected.

In India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu, I met young ex-farmers who had moved out of farm jobs and were now working in factories and government offices. Their day to day circumstances weren’t all that different from millions of others around the world.

But yet, the people I met were remarkable. There was the disabled young man who, with skills training, found an IT job and a life outside his home, and is now supporting his mother. There were also women Self Help Group (SHG) members who, with support from their female Panchayat Leader, Pushpa, were helping to better the lives of their communities. They worked to improve water supply, build toilets and boost sanitation, and also found jobs in agro-processing.

My time in India made it clear to me that opportunity can change lives - especially in rural areas, where 78% of the country’s poor people live.

Opportunity can come in various forms. It can come in the form of social empowerment - by giving voice to groups that are often marginalized, such as women, youth and disabled people.

It can also come in the form of jobs - through skills training, job placement programs and other services that help people secure formal employment.

Jobs and social empowerment are two different opportunities. But they can be related: They both share transformative effects that are positive, and can multiply in unexpected directions.

For example, as women gain more confidence, their voices are listened to on a variety of matters within the home - such as on family planning and how to spend family incomes - improving the lives of their children and their families. Collectively, the power of their voices expressed through SHGs and other groups can bring about change on a larger scale, impacting the wider community as a whole.

Photo credit: Irina Klytchnikova

Jobs, too, are known to have transformative effects. They give people the economic resources to improve their quality of life, open up new opportunities and enable them to engage with the outside world.

On a warm, rainy day in Shantian Village of Luo Fang Town in Jiangxi Province, farmer Liu Jian, along with five other locals, welcomed our World Bank mission team, including technical experts from the Investment Centre of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), into his home.

On a fine Tuesday morning Roghan Devi, a routine road maintenance worker from Dhanusha district visits the local branch of Mega Bank - a commercial bank in Nepal, to receive her monthly salary. She was notified about this through a text message in her mobile phone. Just a few years back, it was unimaginable for her, and for most of the women from her community, to have a personal bank account.

This initiative is part of a World Bank-supported Strengthening National Rural Transport Program (SNRTP) project that works in 33 districts employing over 1,800 routine maintenance workers- over 70% of them are women - to enhance the availability and reliability of transport connectivity for rural communities. To support this initiative, SNRTP forged a joint collaboration with the private sector.